Three local men were arrested in connection with an accidental shooting that prompted a precautionary elementary school lockdown Wednesday afternoon on Lake Tahoe’s North Shore.

Brandon Lamont Fuller, 19, of Kings Beach, allegedly shot a 22-year-old man at about 1:55 p.m. at the Village Hairstyles salon in the shopping center at 8645 North Lake Blvd. in Kings Beach, Placer County Sheriff’s Office Lt. Alfredo Guitron said.

The shooting may have happened inside the salon, but that’s still not clear, he said.

The victim, who is from Sacramento, was shot in the face or cheek, Guitron said. He was taken to a local hospital before being transported to Renown Regional Medical Center in Reno. An update on his condition was unknown as of Thursday.

Detectives detained Fuller near the scene. Guitron said Fuller claimed it was an accident, as did the victim.

After an investigation, two firearms were recovered away from the scene, and Fuller was arrested on suspicion of two charges: negligent discharge of a firearm, an enhancement for great bodily injury; and conspiracy.

Two others suspected to have played a role in covering up the incident were also arrested:

In time, of course, the militia idea died out, replaced by a professionalized armed service. Most gun regulation took place at the state and city level. The judiciary mostly stayed out of the way. In 1939, the Supreme Court upheld the nation’s first national gun law, the National Firearms Act, which put onerous limits on sawed-off shotguns and machine guns — precisely because the guns had no “reasonable relation” to “a well-regulated militia.”

But then, in 1977, there was a coup at the National Rifle Association, which was taken over by Second Amendment fundamentalists. Over the course of the next 30 years, they set out to do nothing less than change the meaning of the Second Amendment, so that it’s final phrase — “shall not be infringed” — referred to an individual right to keep and bear arms, rather than a collective right for the common defense.

A 3-year-old Payson boy shot and killed his 1½ -year-old brother after the boys found a handgun in a neighbor's apartment and took it to another room, the eastern Arizona town's police chief said Wednesday.

Police Chief Don Engler said his department's investigation of the Tuesday shooting will take about a week. Resultswill be forwarded to the Gila County Attorney's Office for a decision on whether to prosecute anybody, he said.

"What we're taking a look at is the circumstances regarding the securing of the weapon" and how the boys were able to get ahold of it, Engler told The Associated Press. "We are continuing our investigation, and we haven't ruled out criminal charges at this point."

He said it was too early to say what recommendation his department might maketo prosecutors.

The boys and their mother were visiting the 78-year-old neighbor in their apartment complex when the shooting occurred in a bedroom.

The brothers found the semi-automatic pistol somewhere in the living area where it was not in plain sight, the police chief said without elaborating. Neither adult knew the boys had the weapon, Engler said.

The boys were playing when they found the gun, police said. The weapon discharged, and the toddler was shot in the head.

Thursday, May 29, 2014

We have not met, but you are now part of our extended family. It is not a family we chose, but a family born from the horrible circumstance of losing a child to gun violence—one that’s only growing each day. My heart breaks for you because I know just a little about the long road ahead of you. We have reached out to you privately but publicly we wanted to say to you and those feeling the sorrow, anger and frustration of this weeks' shooting, you are not alone. It has helped me, and some of the other family members who lost children and family at Sandy Hook Elementary, to come together and advocate for common sense solutions to expanding programs for mental wellness and gun safety solutions. You will find your own path down this difficult road. But know that we are here for you and all of you who have been touched by this tragedy. Together we can and will build a safer world for all our children.

I'm gonna guess that this has already been beaten to death and I just haven't seen it, but how is it that Crimea was taken by Putin with nary a "grassroots" guerilla movement plunging the whole area into a death spiral of PatriotiKKK Freedumb. Crimea being part of Ukraine had plenty of gunz in civilian hands, per this:

I just don't get how that could have happened. Maybe they're all cowards? Maybe they're lulling the Russkis into complacency and then they'll go all "POCOMAXAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!" on their commiefascist asses!!

Point me to anything you have and I'll laugh along with the rest of the people who know just how "Patriotic" the gunzloonz will be if they ever get to experience anything like the recent forcible relocation of the Russian border.

Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Better funding of background checks so as to provide data to the NICS data base help prevent the dangerously mentally ill from obtaining legal guns from FFL licensed sources. We still have the problem of the dangerously mentally ill obtaining legal guns through other means, and of course, we have way too many illegal guns available in our society as well.

But when we have the radical right wing nuttery trying to equate partisan political affiliation with mental illness, and/or fraudulently and factually inaccurately trying to categorize all mass shootings as having a mental illness causation, we need to object. We must push back against this faulty thinking, this profoundly flawed analysis, and this crackpot right wing belief.

We must push back because what this really represents, above and beyond attempting simply to disparage the opposition by the right, is that this claim attempts to redefine gun control arguments and focus. We see some acquiescence to this change of focus by Sen. Blumenthal, in his appearance on Face the Nation, this past Sunday (CBS).

So for example, the excellent article in the Examiner debunked a widely circulated belief on the right, one that occurs across the right wing echo chamber/bubble, that mass shootings are by registered democrats, or at the very least, "lefty leaners".

The idea that recent mass shooters are mostly registered Democrats is a myth

Based on the assertions of Roger Hedgecock a right-wing radio show host,
the meme that the five worst recent mass shootings were committed by
registered Democrats is making its way through e-mail chains and social
media. Hedgecock asserts, without providing any evidence or sources,
that the Ft. Hood shooter, the Virginia Tech shooter, the Aurora Theater
shooter and Adam Lanza of Sandy Hook infamy were all “registered
Democrats”. He acknowledges that Klebold and Harris (the Columbine
Colorado shooters) were too young to be registered voters but asserts,
again without providing any evidence, that Harris and Klebold’s parents
were progressives or liberal Democrats.

In another forum, the radical righties insisted that, ok, so this author debunked the last five mass shooters --- but those OTHER shootings were all by lefties! No. Wrong. Factually false.

1. Elliot Rodgers the most recent mass shooter was proclaimed a 'lefty' because he subscribed to the youtube feed from the Young Turks.
THAT does not define someone as a lefty; I follow Fox News on Facebook, it doesn't make me a right wing nut.
What does appear to show a larger and more valid claim to political orientation and affiliation however is the links to the ultra-conservative male-dominionist men's rights movement expressed in his videos and manifesto, and supported apparently by his reported internet history.

2. Another example claimed -- that James Holmes was a member of Occupy San Diego. That is also factually false. At no time was Holmes involved in any way with Occupy San Diego, nor so far as I can find, did he have any political opinion. He appears to have been apolitical.
We don't know definitively yet if Holmes was mentally ill, or if he was, that mental illness had any causational role in his actions. In contrast, we know that Jared Loughner suffered from severe schizophrenia, but that appears to be the exception to the rule, not typical of mass shooters.

3. Claims that Karl Pierson was a 'lefty' also don't hold up well to scrutiny. The basis for that claim appears to be that he was an advocate for Keynesian economics, and that one student at his school variously claimed he was a communist or a socialist. What is not at all clear is if the student who made those claims even knew Pierson, much less knew him well. There are Keynsian economists and advocates or proponents across the political spectrum; being a Keynsian is not even remotely the same thing as being a 'commie' or a 'socialist'. There appears to be zero factual basis for the claim that Pierson was a socialist, 'commie' or in any other way a 'lefty'. What is clear from the way those words lefty and commie and marxist are used on the right, however, is that most of those who use those terms casually and interchangeably have no clue what the terms mean. Rather they lob them like bad-word grenades to name-call people with whom they disagree, without regard to actual definitions.

4. Adam Lanza, the Sandy Hook shooter has been incorrectly identified over and over on the right as a 'lefty' and a registered Democrat. He was not a lefty, and not a registered voter. If he was mentally ill, we have no diagnosis of it sufficiently chronologically proximate to the shooting, nor do we know if his mental health had any direct causation on his actions. What we do know is that he seemed to share his mother's ultra-conservative views, and that she was a right wing prepper crackpot, of the variety that believes the rubbish promoted by the likes of Glenn Beck.

5. Jared Loughner -- yup, he was severely mentally ill, and yup, that had a direct causational role in his mass shooting. But no, he was not a lefty, and to refute some of the claims made on the right, he was never a volunteer working for Gabby Giffords. What we do know is that he had some vague left-leaning political notions while he was still sane, but that as he became increasingly erratic and his mental illness worsened, he began to visit extremist conservative crackpot web sites, and the ideas from those right wing websites were repeated in communication to Giffords and the Gifford campaign, and that he appears to have targeted Giffords for rejecting those ideas (or at least, not supporting them).

Some mass shootings ARE political in nature, but those are NOT also mental illness caused attacks. Those mass shootings have been, consistently, by radical right wingers.

From the same article:

Interestingly, Hedgecock and those on the far right have conveniently overlooked a number of cases where ideology is clearly right-wing. The acts below are instances of right-wing violence that are unequivocally committed by people who are openly hostile to liberalism. While this does not mean these killers are Republicans, it is quite clear that they are RIGHT-WINGERS and that they have far more in common with Mr. Hedgecock, Alex Jones and the other gun-toting conspiracy nuts on the right than with any evils associated with the Democratic Party or liberalism. In addition, to the list below is the obvious case of Timothy McVeigh, who I have not included because his crime was not committed with firearms. It was however, committed by a right-winger and the carnage was on a massive scale.

For example, on July 18,84 James Oliver Huberty, who told his wife he hated “children, Mexicans and the United States” opened fire inside the McDonald’s Restaurant in San Ysidro, CA using a Browning P-35 Hi-Power 9mm pistol, Winchester 1200 pump-action 12-gauge shotgun, and an Israeli Military Industries 9mm Carbine (Uzi) – all legally acquired. He killed 21 and injured 19 before he was shot dead by police.

I just watched your interview on the Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell.

I'm sorry that it took the loss of your son to join the cause, but I am glad you are part of the movement since it sounds as if you are coming into it with your eyes open. You know the other side will pull all sorts of bullshit--and then cry that they are victims when we fight back.

You hit
the point head on when you said, that you had only lived with the
problem for a few days, and you didn't give much thought to this issue
prior to your son getting killed. You thought it wouldn't happen to him.
And now you are living with the consequences of that complacency.

We
need more people to see that point because until more people realise
that the lax gun laws make people unsafe, people will be complacent
about this issue.

Until it somehow effects them.

It's sad that it takes a personal loss for people to see this issue clearly.

It's not other people's children who are paying for this fake "right", it your own children. It's not an issue of your kids or my kids--it's everybodies' kids that are at risk. You need to get that through your thick skulls.

So, Joe the Plumber--is your right worth YOUR kids dying? We already know that you are putting them at risk. And given what a fucking idiot you are--I'm sure it's a matter of time before something happens close to your home.

And like Richard, you shouldn't wait until it happens to you before you see reason--unless you are too stupid to see reason.

A Clifford woman was hit by a bullet Saturday night while shopping at the westside Walmart in Columbus. That's according to a report from The Republic.

Columbus Police Chief Jon Rohde was at the store at about 8 p.m. Saturday night when he heard a gunshot. Rohde told The Republic that 56-year-old Tony E. Ward of Columbus had been carrying a .22 pistol in a holster on his waistband. The gun fell from his waist and discharged.

The bullet went through a soda bottle in a cart and struck the right arm of 26-year-old Virginia Thompson, who was pushing her newborn baby when the gun went off. The bullet hit the outside of Thompson's arm and after treatment by paramedics she declined to be taken to the hospital.

Rohde told the paper that Ward had a permit for the handgun and Ward was not arrested.

Briar Newsome, pictured, was shot dead when a gun discharged accidentally while he was on a fishing trip with his fatherThe Daily Mail

A 15-year-old Georgia boy has been shot dead when a gun discharged accidentally while he was on a fishing trip with his father.

The teen, identified as Briar Newsome of Carlton, was pronounced dead at the scene. The shooting occurred around 5:30p.m. Thursday at the Broad River bridge on the Elbert County line, Madison County sheriff's deputies said.

Capt. Jimmy Patton said the rifle went off as Briar and his father, Terry Newsome, were putting their boat in the river.

Patton said Terry Newsome was devastated and the incident is being treated at this stage as an accident.

'Although the investigation is ongoing, all preliminary indications are that the shooting was accidental,' Patton said. 'The dad is extremely distraught.'

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

A pistol and other possessions belonging to a one-time Old West outlaw who later ran for governor of Oklahoma and became an actor are going up for auction next month.

The .45 Colt revolver owned by infamous outlaw Alphonzo "Al" J. Jennings could go for as much as $30,000 during an auction June 5 in Woodward, said Ira Smith, auctioneer with Smith & Co. Auction and Reality Inc.

Jennings was born in Virginia in 1863 and moved to El Reno, Oklahoma, where he became the prosecuting attorney for Canadian County, according to the Oklahoma Historical Society.

In 1895, he joined his two brothers in a law practice in Woodward. Later that year, one brother was killed and another wounded in a shootout with a rival attorney. Jennings later formed an outlaw band that attempted to rob trains and general stores before he was captured and sentenced to life in prison.

One of his brothers got his sentence reduced, and Jennings was released just a few years later. He ran unsuccessfully for Oklahoma governor in 1914 and then moved to California, where he appeared in at least two westerns before dying in 1961.

"Al Jennings is probably one of the most enigmatic characters in Oklahoma history," Oklahoma Historical Society executive director Bob Blackburn said. "He was a potential candidate for governor, so he had a professional side to him — an ambition to be accepted by the community — and at the same time, he had this urge to get rich quick. He was not successful at either one."

Armatix offers one firearm — the Intelligent Pistol — in two different versions: the iP1 Basic and the iP1 Personalized. The Basic works like a traditional firearm. Pick it up, pull the trigger and feel the recoil.

The iP1 Personalized can be synced with our Intelligent Watch, which is worn on the wrist. The authorized user inputs a five-digit personal code into the watch that activates the firearm. Without that code, the gun cannot be fired.

The firearm also detects the proximity of the watch, meaning that even if the gun is stolen after the code has been keyed in, it cannot be fired. If the gun and the watch are both stolen, the thief might as well throw them out because the gun won’t fire without the correct five-digit code.

In short, the gun is yours alone. It is personalized.

Because this technology provides a positive and safer experience, I believe the number of gun enthusiasts will rise. Families will be able to protect themselves from criminals while guaranteeing that a child cannot fire the gun. For Armatix, safety is a multi-dimensional concept: We think that guns should make you safer without adding the risk of a terrible family tragedy.

The safety mechanisms that I designed are completely in line with the values underpinning the U.S. gun-rights movement and represent a market-driven approach to firearm safety. It’s about having access to more technology features and the right to choose the firearm that best suits your needs. This is a solution everyone should be able to get behind.

Gov. Bobby Jindal signed two bills into law Friday (May 23) that will expand gun rights for Louisiana residents after they received overwhelming support from the state Legislature. The new statutes will go into effect Aug. 1.

The more sweeping of the two gun rights measures will allow people with concealed handgun permits to carry their weapons into restaurants that serve alcohol, but make most of their money from food sales.

Present law does not allow citizens to carry guns into establishments that serve alcohol. And while people with concealed handgun permits will be able to go into a restaurant serving alcohol soon, they still wouldn't be able to drink alcohol while packing heat.

The soon-to-be law also gives current and retired law enforcement officers as well as district attorneys and judges even more flexibility than the general public when it comes to concealed weapons. Those in law enforcement would be allowed to carry guns into bars, though they also couldn't drink while carrying a weapon.

The second bill signed by Jindal will expand the "stand your ground" law in Louisiana. Under current law, a person who kills an intruder coming into his car or house is given the benefit of the doubt and can use self-defense as a lawful reason for the killing. But the same self-defense argument could not be legally applied to situations where a person hurt, but didn't kill, the intruder.

Metairie Rep. Joe Lopinto, the sponsor of the legislation, said he wanted to close that loophole. People who end up harming -- but not killing -- an intruder or a carjacker should not be charged with murder if those who kill those people don't face those consequences, he said.

A National Rifle Association spokeswoman called the push for new CDC funding “unethical.”

“The abuse of taxpayer funds for anti-gun political propaganda under the guise of ‘research’ is unethical,” spokeswoman Catherine Mortensen said in a statement to ProPublica. “That is why Congress should stand firm against President Obama’s scheme to undermine a fundamental constitutional right.”

Monday, May 26, 2014

Earlier this month, I told my friend Mikeb302000 about a former U.S. Marine from Florida who unfortunately and perhaps accidentally crossed the international border at San Ysidro into Mexico with all of his worldly possessions in his Ford F-150 pickup truck. Unfortunately, these possessions included three legally owned firearms. Understand that guns are illegal in Mexico. I accepted his version of events in his own words. He just got lost looking for a restaurant off of I-5, trying to meet his friends. Even if you do believe his story, the fact that he was driving around with unsecured weapons in the cab of his pickup truck in the city of San Diego makes him a careless scofflaw. Bear in mind that he is a soldier suffering from PTSD, a form of mental illness. I unfairly speculated that he might have been slightly under the influence of alcohol given the fact that he simply continued driving south all of the way to the border without noticing any of the signs about the approaching international border, the last freeway exit into the U.S.A. and even a last ditch U-turn designed to give drivers one last chance to remain upon U.S. soil. Mike was kind enough to create a post from my tip. I was hoping that the regulars would get worked up about the injustice of it all. They did not completely disappoint. Now, three grueling weeks later, FOX has decided to release their take on all of this nonsense just in time for the Memorial Day Weekend. The headline is “Leave No Man Behind.” Obama has abandoned this poor soul, when just one phone call from the DOJ or the American Consul could have released this defender of freedom from the ravages of the Tijuana penitentiary system. The article by a FOX contributor does not seem to agree with the earliest press release from the San Diego Union-Tribune which reported that he attempted an escape and then subsequently attempted suicide while incarcerated. He was reported to have been doing much better in his incarceration when the prison provided him with an English-speaking chaplain. I am sorry, but it is difficult to view the U-T article without a paying subscription. Since there is really no way of confirming or denying any subsequent facts, FOX has chosen to say that originally he was chained by both arms and legs to his bed, and that now he only has to be chained by one leg by the Mexican prison guards. I mean, why not lie, if there is no way to check the facts? Much as the leftist blogosphere thrived under the sadistic presidency of GWB, FOX has no apparent reason to exist other than to spread hatred and lies about our president. This was just too good of an opportunity to pass up. Make hay while the sun shines!

Today is the day we honor and acknowledge those who died in military service on behalf of this country.

Today is the day we honor and acknowledge that sacrifice in defense of our nation, our form of government, our Constitution.
The
core premise of our government, what is established by our
Constitution, what was so beautifully articulated by Abraham Lincoln,
president during the Civil War which inspired this holiday, is
"government of the people, by the people, and for the people".

That
is what those men and women, all of them back to the American
revolution died to protect and defend and to ensure continues.

That government of the people, by the people, takes place through the function of one man (or woman), and one vote.

That
is NOT one vote ONLY for a few, special, privileged people who have the
'right' color, ethnicity or origins, the 'right' religion, or the
'right' economic status, or the 'right' political ideology.

That
is the opposite of one person/one vote. That is the opposite of
legitimate representative government - the form of government that
defines our nation.

That was what those wars where
those people died we honor today were fought to oppose - to prevent
control of government by the few, to prevent human beings from treatment
as second class citizens.

I think about that every
time I see an effort by conservatives to suppress or limit or restrict
or in some way impair or make more difficult the right of people -
American citizens - legally to exercise their right to vote.

The National Report recently ran this headline, reflecting an ugly moment of honsety and candor:

Secret McConnell Recording: Tea Party Lost Primaries Because It “hasn’t learned to conceal its racism”

“They
have their strong base, their core. But, they don’t have success
courting the middle. You know why? It’s their overt racism. The Tea
Party hasn’t learned to conceal its racism. That’s where they fail. The
Republican party knows better. Want to keep minority voters from the
polls? Fine, set up hindrances to “prevent voter fraud”. Want to cut
social services? Fine, but do it for “fiscal conservatism”. These Tea
Party idiots and their supporters are out hollering the N word, calling
Obama an ape, suggest Michelle is a transvestite. That alienates the
middle. That’s what costs them. You want to think those things? Think
them to yourselves. You want to legislate against that them? Come up
with an excuse. The Tea Party will remain an also ran unless they work
on their poker face a bit more”.

It should
be obvious to Mitch McConnell and to all conservatives that keeping
minority voters from the polls, or keeping anyone from voting as easily
as others vote that he is dishonoring what those veterans fought and
died to protect by voter suppression.

By voter suppression I mean

creating long lines by reducing polling places or making them inaccessible,

reducing early voter days,

not providing bathrooms to people who come to a location to vote,

purging legitimate voters from voting rolls,

voter ID when there is not a problem with voter fraud that would be solved by that solution-in-search-of-a-problem,

laws which disenfranchise criminals who have paid their debt to
society so as to disproportionately disenfranchise minority ethnicities

laws which make it more difficult or expensive for people to register to vote

laws which privatize voting, and which require voting machines that
result in 'hanging chads' or dubious electronic results vulnerable to
tampering

Think of that
today. Think about what people died to preserve, think about the ideal,
think about Lincoln's words (a liberal), think about Jefferson's words
(another liberal) in the Declaration of Independence:

We
hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

All
men (and women) are created equal, have equal rights, all men - and
women - are NOT second class citizens. Men and women have bled and died
for that.

A woman whose 4-year-old son accidentally shot himself with a gun she left in her car will not face any criminal charges, prosecutors said Friday.

"There is no evidence that Denise Jackson acted with the purpose to neglect Kevin on May 3, 2014," Chief Deputy District Attorney Kent Lovern said in a written statement.

According to Lovern:

Jackson and a friend drove to St. Vincent de Paul to purchase a television. Jackson, who has a license to carry a concealed weapon, stored her weapon in her car's glove compartment before entering the store.

After buying the television, Jackson and the friend returned to Jackson's home near N. 106th St. and W. Brown Deer Road on Milwaukee's northwest side, parked in the rear and carried the television to a second-floor bedroom.

While she was inside, Jackson learned from another child that Kevin had shot himself inside her car. She told investigators the boy was not present when she returned from the store, and that she thought she had locked her car's doors.

The boy was in critical condition days after the shooting.

Lovern wrote that a person responsible for the welfare of the child "must have the purpose to contribute to the neglect of the child or was aware that the person's action or failure to take action was practically certain to cause that result."

He wrote that Smith putting the gun in the glove box, in a car she thought was locked, was not "practically certain" to contribute to her son's neglect.

"Each case is evaluated on its individual facts," he wrote. "The circumstances leading to this young child gaining possession of a firearm are tragic but do not support criminal prosecution."